


Death on Tuesday

by allsorrowsborne



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Body Horror, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, F/F, Magical Realism, Personification of Death, dark!eve, infidelity (of a kind)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:48:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25001161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsorrowsborne/pseuds/allsorrowsborne
Summary: Eve and Villanelle’s domestic bliss is disrupted when Death, personified, knocks on their door.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 82
Kudos: 110





	1. Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Killing Eve meets fairy tale meets body horror

Death came on Tuesday. A woman of course, wearing a velour jumpsuit in bubblegum pink and blue sneakers speckled with white stars and half crescent moons. She sipped a latte from a cardboard cup and looked, as always, divine. Death (who once was called Cheri a long time ago) rang the doorbell. Gum wadded in her mouth, jaw working hard. She chewed to distract herself from smoking, a very bad habit. She wanted to quit. Quitting was hard. The door opened.

“You?” asked Villanelle, surprised. She had trained with Death long ago – fucked her too on a train through Europe – and remembered when she had drowned in Crete.

“Who else, my love?” said Death and even though Villanelle loathed to see her, she could not deny that her love was real. “I even brought you your favorite balloons.” She held up a bag, uninflated. Reds, yellows, greens.

“In that case, you’d better come in.”

They exchanged pleasantries in the hallway – _what a nice house_ and _charming neighborhood_ – before Death removed her shoes and they moved into the living room. Nine months now – her and Eve – long enough to create a new life. Each of the rooms had its purpose: bath, bed, dining, etc. Death sat in the room for living, comfortable in a plush brown leather armchair. She put up her feet on the matching ottoman. Villanelle passed a coaster.

“That’s her?” said Eve. She walked in from the kitchen carrying a spatula caked in batter. A green apron hung from her neck with large red lettering: “Danger Men Cooking.”

“Yep,” said Villanelle. She reached for Eve’s hand, rubbing a thumb lazily over her wrist. They sat together on the sofa. “Now we decide what to do.”

“Choices?” asked Eve, waving the spatula like a weapon (or maybe a wand).

Villanelle wiped a blob of batter from Eve’s cheek and sucked her fingers absent-mindedly. “Choices,” she confirmed.

They sat there for minutes, nobody speaking. The silence was pleasant. Eve broke it. Nobody minded. “Do you want to stay for dinner?” Death nodded. Her appetite was large.

Eve and Villanelle were terrible cooks. On their third day together in this house (a two-up two-down in the Yorkshire Dales) Villanelle had burned the oatmeal. The burnt oatmeal had given off smoke. The smoke had set off the smoke detector. The smoke detector had dredged up memories and Villanelle cried for fourteen hours. She hadn’t cooked since. Eve fared a little better. She made pancakes – only pancakes – every day for every meal. Atrocious alone, but loveable when drenched in syrup. It worked for them. Perfect even. But not for a guest. Villanelle ordered delivery from the local fish and chip shop, checking if Death was still vegetarian. They played eye-spy until it arrived. 

Dinner was nice. Cheese pasties. Mushy peas. Cod to share. (Death declined, except for the batter; fish was meat, in her eyes). Eve let Death finish the chips, watching as she licked her fingers to savor the salt. Villanelle tried to mind her manners – please and thank you and chewing food with her mouth closed – while Death tore everything into scraps and placed them neatly beneath her tongue. Eve was enthralled. She liked having Death as a guest at their table, at least until they cleared the food.

“Why now?” Villanelle asked. Death could have come yesterday, or perhaps in a decade. What was special about today? Eve opened a second bottle of wine.

“I miss you too much,” Death said simply. Eve nodded, a deep affinity already forming. She knew the feeling well.

“Will you stay?” Eve asked. “I can make up the guest room. I can bring you a clean set of towels.”

\---

Death stayed for twenty-nine days. Villanelle’s cycle. She always bled heavily. Eve would fuck her in the shower and Villanelle would swallow her whole and afterward they would lean together against the tile and watch as blood, dark as midnight, thick as rope, stuck and spiraled down the drain.

“What should we give her?” Eve wondered aloud on the first Friday, still of the hope that niceties mattered, that just the right gesture at just the right moment could placate Death. “Maybe if I bought some cookies and pretended that I baked them myself?” Villanelle shook her head sadly. “Maybe membership at the gym?”

“She just wants me.”

Villanelle was many things. Arrogant and narcissistic, maybe even psychopathic. None of that meant she was wrong.

Panic clogged in Eve’s chest. She tried to push it aside. “Tell me how she wants you, baby.” She touched Villanelle’s hip with purpose, slid fingers over ribs. “Tell me again about the train.” Eve tried to picture the railcar, speeding through the Ukrainian landscape, the cramped space of the toilet compartment, Villanelle’s face between Death’s thighs. 

Villanelle brushed her away.

“Do or be done, Eve, you know that.” Eve puzzled at the phrasing. “It doesn’t translate well into English. Kill or die, okay?” Villanelle looked away, distracted. “I don’t want either.” She watched as Eve pulled on her slippers, shaped like rabbits. “I just want things to stay as they are.”

\---

They fell into a simple routine. Death was easy to live with at first, once they got used to her ways. Mostly, she kept to herself. She knew the right button to press to recline the armchair. She browsed Buzzfeed articles on her iPhone 11 Pro and sometimes read her favorites aloud. She flicked through a magazine. She watered the house plants twice a week and once offered to help fold laundry (one of the chores that rarely got done). Eve said no, you are our guest. Eve was right. This was not Death’s domain.

Other times she was all around them, in between them, drifting in their space as smoke.

She entered their bedroom at night. The first time, Eve was propped up in bed on a folded pillow, reading on her phone (an older model), the screen dimmed. Villanelle slept beside her. Eve smelled wood and cactus and something sweet. Low clouds hovered beneath the door. Eve rose. _I am not here for you_. Eve pressed her hand against the door, unsure of what she wanted to happen. _I am not here for you_. She searched for a peephole that wasn’t there, unsure of what she wanted to see. _I am not here for you_. Death pooled around her feet, slipping in and out between her toes. _I am not here_. A dry heat (the warmth surprised her) drifted high and cupped her ankle. Not higher. Not yet. _For you._

Eve was self-conscious. Death could enter their room. Two days later, as Villanelle bent her over the birchwood dresser, knocking a picture frame to the floor, Eve thought that they should be quieter. “She could hear us.” Villanelle only fucked her harder and begged her to do things they hadn’t yet done, things for which Eve could not be quiet. _Death could be listening. Death could be listening_. The things they did were exquisite. Eve’s orgasm came from elsewhere.

\---

The rot began on the eleventh day.

Owl pellets first. Eve found one in the coffee container. Villanelle found a second immersed in a jar of hand cream and a third rolled up in a yoga mat. By lunchtime, they had disposed of nine. They knew there would be more. That evening, when Villanelle bathed, Eve dug through discarded egg boxes and excess batter to retrieve the pellets. She cut them open with a surgical scalpel (a new one that she had bought online and hadn’t yet had cause to use). She sliced slowly through vomit and sand, praying for sparrow bones. There was nothing inside but smoke.

Death would not wait.

“Eve, do you want my bath water?” Villanelle stood naked on the landing, calling down the stairs. “It’s still hot and smells amazing.” Rings curled around Eve’s fingers. Encircled her wrists. She bowed her head and inhaled deeply, trapping the smoke before it drifted to the ceiling. Eve did not hear Villanelle’s offer. She only had eyes for Death.

\---

“Tell me a story.”

_Once upon a time in a small Russian village there was a small girl who did small things who had a mother who didn’t love her and sent her away. Once upon a time there was an angry girl who started fires that burned down buildings with people inside them and unburned people sent her away. Once upon a time there was an older girl (almost a woman) who learned a language and loved a teacher and killed a husband and judge and jury sent her away. Once upon a time there was a violent woman who lived in a prison and fucked a cellmate and spat on a guard who beat her to death and sent her away._

_Once upon a time (all-time, every-time) there was Death. Diligent. Amoral. Powerful. Bored. Death appraised the murdered woman. Peas in a pod. They struck up a friendship. They wrote up a contract. Both with benefits. Death would never ever send her away._

“What happened next?”

“Shh, my love. It’s time to sleep.”

\---

On day twelve, after dinner (vegetable curry, naan bread, samosas), they played a game of Truth or Dare. At Death’s insistence, the only option was Truth. They traded stories of first times, worst times, mediocre times. ~~~~

“What about the murders, my loves?” Death was looser than usual, as if she had spent the day at a spa. “What was your favorite?”

“I’ll go first.” Despite Villanelle’s early retirement – her moral awakening – she still loved to brag. “The perfume lady, Carla De Mann. Amazing science, no? Wait! Zhang Wu. He had a very nice smile.” She draped her arm around Eve’s shoulder. “My favorite because I role played as you.”

Death smiled indulgently. “What about you, Eve?”

“Easy. The one in Venice. Victor Kedrin. It led me to her.”

Eve pulled back her hair, as if to tie it. She turned sideways to Villanelle. “Are you alright?”

Villanelle spoke in an English accent. “Wear it down.” They bumped shoulders, laughing. One of their favorite recreations. 

“I tried to reenact the kill,” Eve said, turning to Death. “Look.” She rolled up her shorts to show a small mark on her inner thigh. Death did not move closer.

“What about you?” Eve wanted more attention. “What was your favorite, Death?” Villanelle elbowed her, shaking her head in warning. It was too late. Eve had issued the invitation.

“Easy, my love.” _My love, my love_. “The ones that you agree to forget.”

From nowhere, Eve heard electronic music. Smelled amyl nitrate and sweat. Young bodies pressed against her. Bill fell.

“She held him like a lover, Eve. She laid him down, as she does with you.”

From nowhere, Villanelle heard birds. Smelled blood and panic. Pressure of her finger, pulling. Eve fell.

“She swung an axe to save you, Villanelle. You did not deserve to be saved.”

And then Eve knew, as Villanelle knew, that all of the dinners and games and house plants and armchairs and bath times and yoga and slippers would not save them, could not save them. Death did not abide by their rules.

\---

Death was cruel. Inevitable. Eve was obsessed. Inevitable too.

On the second Monday, Villanelle left to pick up Eve’s nerve pain medication (the least she could do). Eve and Death were alone. Death asked the question that haunted Eve. “What do you want?” Ghostly, almost.

“I want to know everything.”

“My girl hasn’t shown you enough?” _No, she’s mine. You’re mine. I’m –_

Eve rubbed her shoulder absent-mindedly. Taking a bullet was one thing; tasting Death was something else.

“I want to know it with you.”

Death rose from the reclining armchair and joined Eve on the couch. “It is nothing like falling asleep.” She tightened her hand over Eve’s mouth. It did not stifle her scream.

Oceans crashed. Lungs filled and did not empty. Eve heard seagulls squalling overhead. Always the birds. Her heart stopped. She knew the hand that pushed her under almost as well as she knew her own. And Eve saw life, as Death saw life: breaking, receding, gone.

That evening, Eve sat in the empty bathtub, wearing a black dress. She begged Villanelle to burst through the door, push her backward, turn on water, climb on top of her, pin her down. Their thing. To fuck, with history. Eve’s head slammed against porcelain. Villanelle’s hand ripped her dress. Another rose to cover her mouth ( _Death could be listening. Death could be listening_ ). Eve relived the salt in the water, the sand at her backbone, the sun through the waves. This was the feeling that she was chasing, that Death had shown her. Drowning by Villanelle’s hand.

\---

Sometime, during the third week, Eve suggested that Death join them in bed. It only seemed right. Eve had the sense to ask Villanelle first. Eve had the sense to drop the matter when Villanelle shouted and stormed from the house. Eve had the sense, later that night, to not bring up the women in London, the cloud in the bedroom, the salt in her lungs.

“She ruined my life!” Villanelle sobbed.

 _Yeah, but you got some really nice clothes_.

Eve had the sense not to say it out loud. She did not have the sense to stop.

\---

Villanelle saw the signs, of course. The rot was spreading. Woodworm in the coffee table. Horseflies. Earthworms under the rug. Eve asked Death a thousand questions. Took notes. Created a dossier. Laughed ironically. Threw up her hands. Stuck a knife into her leg. Came back for more. Stayed up late, thinking, thinking.

_This is what you wanted. No this is what you wanted. No this is what you wanted. No this. No._

On day twenty, at sunset, Villanelle watched them from the kitchen window sitting on the garden swing. Death steadied Eve’s hand, as she lit a cigarette to share. The blood red sky swallowed Eve’s laughter. Quitting remained hard.

The oak bedframe began to crumble.

\---

The next day, Villanelle rose early. She opened her computer, typed in three discrete passwords, noted a location, and left.

She returned at eight o’clock in the evening. Eve and Death had finished dinner (pancakes only) and were on the couch, watching a black and white movie. Villanelle blocked their view.

“Hey!” yelled Eve. “You’re blocking our view.”

“Shut up, Eve.” Villanelle’s hair was disheveled. Her eye was bruised. She reached into her bag and pulled out a severed head. She dropped it into the bowl of popcorn.

“I did it, okay?” She stared at Death. “Now get out of my house.”

“ _Our_ house, Villanelle,” Eve cautioned.

Death smiled widely. “Oh, my loves, we’re just getting started.” She looked Villanelle straight in the eye. “It doesn’t count if your heart is not in it.” Death reached under the severed head to grab some popcorn and then turned back to the screen.


	2. Mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death moves closer. Eve grows hungrier. Villanelle can not keep awake.

Four Tuesdays. Three weeks. Not long now. Death was chronic. Ever-present. Death was terminal. No escape. Death consumed them, moth larvae gnawing through everyday fabric. The air was thick and hard to breathe. Eve and Villanelle needed a break.

They sneaked from the house at sunset while Death pruned roses in the back garden. They headed to the local park three streets over. They sat on swings. Back and forth. Villanelle passed Eve a thermos. Coffee, whiskey, sugar, cream. Eve drank deeply and returned it. Back and forth. They came here sometimes, early evening, after children had been dragged home to bath times, screaming, before teenagers showed up angling for filth. In between time. Back and forth. They came here for difficult conversations. The one about Villanelle’s mother (“you did what?”). The one about Eve’s father (“you did what?”). Today, again, about Death. 

“You were killed in prison?”

“Prison industrial complex, Eve. Brutal system.”

“So your file – ”

“Sometimes cover-ups are the truth.”

Villanelle swung sideways, bumping Eve. An ice-cream van sounded in the distance. Villanelle daydreamed of ninety-nines.

“And she made a deal because she was bored?”

“When people are bored, they do crazy things.”

A young woman passed on a skateboard. What could Eve say? She asked more questions. “And now?”

Villanelle kicked the sand under the swing. The sand slipped inside her sandal. It felt good now, but it would irritate her later. “I don’t know. I killed her already. I fucked her. I drowned her. I don’t know what else I can do.”

Eve’s foot unearthed cat shit. She stilled her face to mask her feelings. It didn’t work.

“Are you jealous?” Villanelle poked at her side. Eve’s jealousy always excited her. Eve nodded. Yes, she was jealous. But not in the way that Villanelle thought.

\---

When they got home, Death had company. Time was stretched out on the sofa, watching TV. Death handled the introductions. Time was non-binary (used ‘they/their’ pronouns). Time was non-linear (pulled ‘them’ apart). Eve was curious. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Time laughed easily. “I’m always here. You just haven’t noticed.”

Eve noticed now. Time was striking. They wore a black vintage band t-shirt from another era. Twelve-hole Doc Martens that had come back in style. Steampunk pants from centuries past.

“This is Eve. And Villanelle.”

“I’ve heard so much about you.” Time stood to shake their hands. “The future dead.”

Villanelle took it in stride. “What else?”

\---

Over the next few days (Time would measure it more precisely), Villanelle killed four more times. Each more brutal than the last. Some might have begged for their life, or offered her money, or mentioned their children, or spat in her face, or pissed in their pants. Villanelle didn’t notice; the details blurred. She left the house for hours on end, returning with bruises that turned like old fruit, soft and discolored. She brought home body parts in reusable shopping bags and dropped them like mice at her owner’s feet. Dutiful. Feral. Nothing satisfied Death.

“Boring!” Death said, as she turned off the coffee maker and tossed a testicle into the bin. “I don’t feel it if you don’t feel it.”

Villanelle curled up on the couch, defeated. “I just feel finished.” She glanced at Eve, who watched from the window. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

Death walked over and pushed a loose strand of hair from Villanelle’s face. “I’m sorry, my love. I don’t make the rules.”

When Villanelle left to take a shower, to soap and scrub at the blood on her hands, Death turned to Eve. “Did she honestly think she could walk away?”

Eve sighed. It sounded ridiculous. Her shoulder throbbed. Traitor. She picked up a piece of paper to busy her hands (a recipe for buttermilk pancakes). She glanced at the gifts by Death’s feet. Toes, an ear, was that an eyeball? She asked a question that had never concerned her before. “What is she doing wrong?”

Death sighed as if entering a memory. “She has to want it. She has to love it. She has to rush as their souls fold in.” Death licked her lips. It wasn’t the promise of buttermilk pancakes. “It’s the only way I can feel.”

Eve creased the recipe in half. _I could do it._ In half again. _I could_. Again. _I can._ Again. The paper got smaller. The paper grew thicker. _I have._ A few creases and it folded no further. Limitations. Eve wondered how to surpass them, how to fold one hundred times. She wanted the edge of the universe.

“I miss her like that.”

The voice was sad. Did it belong to Eve or Death? Eve did not know. Nor who asked the follow-up question.

“Why did you come back?”

\---

Villanelle took to bed. She slept longer and longer after each kill. The afternoons slipped into evenings slipped into night times slipped into daybreaks. By day twenty-five, she was barely conscious, waking for only minutes at a time. Eve was desperate. “You can fuck me while I’m sleeping, you know,” Villanelle muttered, completely missing the point.

Eve sat on the edge of the bed. She shook Villanelle to keep her awake and asked the question she did not want answered (a rare occurrence: she lived for answers). “Isn’t there anything that you can do?”

Villanelle coughed and spat out a tooth. Fell back to sleep.

Time slipped sideways, tires on ice.

\---

Eve found Death in the reclining armchair, eating a peach. She broke the stone with sticky fingers. Earwigs emerged. She kept on eating. Her appetite grew.

“Why her?” Eve demanded. “Why won’t you take me instead?”

“I will take you, as you wish.”

That night, as Villanelle slumbered, Eve said yes, yes, as Death, as smoke, as ocean, as Cheri, took her over, took her under, entered her mind as she wished. She dreamt of horses faster than airplanes. Lightning splitting an oak tree in half. She dreamt herself tethered to a rickety chair, in a wooden hut, in a shadowy forest, where Death claimed her as her bride. The rumbling cliché of dreams. Pine needles broke her skin. The edge of her dream ripped and crumbled. Eve woke to an orgasm that was not over and the lingering smell of cactus and rot. Shame consumed her. Ate her alive.

It wasn’t enough.

They smoked together constantly. On the porch, in the garden, on the kitchen counter, in the shower fully clothed, halfway up the stairs. They passed mentholated cigarettes back and forth and Eve moaned with pleasure for Death tasted good. She pulled smoke into her lungs, into her blood stream, and held her breath until she grew dizzy. She laid down on the cold tile of the kitchen floor and begged Death to lie beside her, stay for a while. Death drew marks over her body, in places that Eve couldn’t see but felt as surely as her heartbeat. Sex, chaos, knowledge, destruction. She wanted it all. Flowers for her funeral bouquet.

Eve wanted Death. She _wanted_ Death. Pulled like tides are pulled by the moon. Who was she to resist such power? Who was she to try?

Time watched from their spot on the couch, as if this were a Netflix movie. Rewound the good parts. Paused for a moment. Hit fast-forward when they got bored. Guessed the end.

\---

“Why do you like her?” Villanelle had woken to use the toilet and stumbled back towards the bed, tripping slightly on a pile of dirty clothes. Smudges of grey peppered Eve’s throat.

Villanelle had asked this before. The first time, Eve expressed confusion. The second time, she easily lied. This time, Eve was done with pretending.

“I feel things with her.”

“She turned me into a monster, Eve.”

“I would not have liked you without that monster.”

Sounds drifted through the window. A child screamed. Another laughed. Another yelled.

“When did you get so honest?” Villanelle spoke hesitantly, as if words could tear out throats.

“When did you get so soft?”

Eve regretted it as soon as she said it. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t say it again.

Villanelle staggered over to the laundry basket, grabbed a machete from a pile of weapons, and went down the stairs. “I’m going to try again.”

\---

Death moved closer; Eve grew hungrier; Villanelle could not keep awake. And Time did what Time always does. Started to run out.

“Please. Tell me what happened next. I’m wide awake.”

_Death cared for the woman like no other. She made a compound of cocoa and pig’s liver to heal her spirit; she sealed her broken bones with wax. Death helped the woman embrace her nature (some parts at least) and stoked her detachment into an art. A new lease on life, bound to Death. In return, Death didn’t ask much. Entertainment. Spectacular kills. “I don't feel anything,” Death whispered, as she handed over another switchblade. “It is so boring.” And if the woman felt like a jester, slitting the fifteenth throat of the evening, she pushed it aside. She understood Death’s lament._

_After four months, her training was complete. They settled on Crete for the graduation ceremony, a stone’s throw from the Icarian Sea. They traveled by train from Russia to Greece. A long journey. Two days and nights. They passed the time in ways predictable (Death and sex: a very fine line). After the train, a bus, a ferry. They waited till sunset and waded waist deep into the sea._

_“Are you sure?” The murdered woman’s hands were shaking._

_“Your final test. After this, you could kill your lover, kill your mother.”_

_And if the woman still had questions – was it worth it? did she want it? was she haunted by her own ghost? – she did not ask them out loud. Just this._

_“Will you come back?”_

_“Always, my love. I’m never not with you.” Death kissed the woman’s palm, licking fingers, savoring salt, then slid the hand to her own throat. “I’m Death. I’m Deathless. I just want the thrill.”_

_The current was strong. The woman was stronger. Killing was one way to say goodbye. She pulled Death up for one last kiss, foam and sand encrusted on lips. “Remember, each time must be spectacular.” Yes, yes._

No.

\---

“She stopped, Eve. She broke her contract.”

Eve sat on the edge of Death’s single bed in the guest room. She had entered the room to look for something (she lost her wallet?) and stayed for longer than she intended (she lost her way?). She had napped, perhaps, or listened to stories. A fairytale? She couldn’t remember.

Eve shook her head, as if clearing water from her ears. “Good for her.”

Death stared at Eve, expression unreadable. “If only that were true.”

A loud yawn came from the doorway. Eve looked but no one was there. Was she losing Time?

\---

Another kill. Another body. Eve didn’t see it. Death didn’t feel it. Villanelle was falling apart. Time reappeared, counting backwards.

Eve found two of Villanelle’s teeth in the bed. Strong enamel. Rotted roots. She picked them up carefully and pressed sharp edges into her palm. “You’re supposed to leave them under the pillow.” Eve aimed for tenderness. It fell flat. Caretaking was not her style.

“You think my mother did that shit?”

Tender was meat made from weak muscle. Tender was injury too raw to touch.

Eve went to the bathroom cabinet and returned with a box of gauze. She folded wads and pressed them into Villanelle’s mouth to stem the bleeding. White weave grew sodden and heavy. _What do I smell of?_ Eve threw the used pad in the vague direction of the bin. She reached for another.

“My dad threw them into rat holes.” Villanelle sat up slightly, rearranging pillows. She never spoke of her father. “The rat brought me these.” She gestured to her mouth, canines and molars, visible gaps. “Beautiful, huh?” Yes. Still.

Eve pictured her own father. A memory of magpies. Time was starting to toss them around.

Villanelle’s skin was clammy. Grey hairs mingled with blonde. A dribble of blood clung to the corner of her mouth. If Eve kissed Villanelle now, it would hurt her. Fuck she would wince and fuck she would cry and fuck she would moan and fuck she would fuck she would fuck – . Eve squeezed her eyes tightly. Something was deeply wrong with her mind. She knew that. Villanelle too. Liked it. Wanted it. “Do it, Eve.”

Eve kissed her. Lips on clay, cracked by drought. Tongue on metal, crumbled by rust. Villanelle gasped, yes, yes. Eve pulled back covers.

“Eve, can you come downstairs? I want to show you something.” Death’s voice rose from below.

Eve ignored her. Death could wait. Time stood still. Eve shoved her hand down her pants, scrambled onto Villanelle’s thigh. Villanelle flexed a weak muscle. Tender.

\---

On the day before the end, Villanelle’s skin broke open. Multiple injuries, each with a story that Eve knew. Old face wounds wept clear fluid. A deep gash burst on her arm and immediately started to fester. One wound bled more than the others. The only one that could kill. “Eve!” Villanelle yelled from the bedroom. “Eve!”

Eve straddled Villanelle’s legs and pressed towels into her stomach. _Okay, hold on._ Time rewound. Wounds unknitted. _I got you, I got you_. Old violence. New blood. Eve applied pressure, as if her hands could staunch the inevitable, as if soft fluffy bath towels could absorb the damage they had done. _I really liked you_. Eve ran to the dresser and found a small unused sewing kit from a Christmas cracker. The needle was dull. Eve pushed hard. Villanelle screamed. She grabbed Eve’s hand to pull it away. _Put it down, I need to help you._ Yellow thread turning orange, tugging skin. Together, barely. It wouldn’t last long.

Blood replenishes (within limits). Bodies mend (until they don’t). Even healing has its threshold. Eve was still unsure of hers.

Time added another dimension.

_Once upon a time, there was a driven woman who held a knife, who pushed it in, who pulled it out, who changed her mind, who staunched the blood, who tracked her down, who changed her mind, who touched the scar, who kissed the skin, who whispered words, who changed her mind, who was not sorry, who craved the power, who loved the mark, who changed her mind, who loved the woman, who changed, who changed, you can’t, I can, and now, and now?_

Death didn’t bleed (Eve knew this from biting her lip). Death didn’t bruise (Eve knew this from squeezing her arm). Death didn’t break even if Eve found the right spot – a bundle of nerves – and pushed just so – a crack in the glass. Death was power but no vulnerability. Death was certainty without the stakes. No struggle. No ambiguity. Death would never stare in awe at Eve’s capacities, beg for mercy, cry in pain. Where was the fun in that?

A sound at the door interrupted Eve’s musings.

“What was that?” Villanelle spoke from the edge of consciousness.

Eve had clarity. Eve had confidence. “It is Time,” she replied.


	3. Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve tries to make a deal with Death, but Memory gets in the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was tricky! Massive thanks to nextgreatadventure for helping me sort out the unwieldy plot, and skinonbones for helping me with the Korean word for mama. And thanks, as always, to alicekittridge for encouraging me to keep writing fiction.

Time moved quickly. They burst into the room and started to run in circles, clumsy and panicked. A broad shoulder clipped Eve’s cheek, seeding a bruise to blossom tomorrow. Heavy boots trampled toes. Time grew bigger (elbows, feet, inches, yards) and filled the room, inescapable. Was that possible? Time and space becoming one?

Eve lost balance. She fell onto the bed with Villanelle. She pulled sweat-drenched sheets over her head. To make it stop, just for a moment. To close her eyes and count to ten. She wasn’t a child, but she felt like one, a child who battles monsters at bedtime, armed with a flashlight and fated to lose. She wanted a space away from Time, apart from Death, a cabin she could build off to the side, with wooden walls and mossy floor, a stream nearby where they could bathe, Villanelle carving furniture, tongue in cheek in concentration, knife in hand. The thought surprised her. Still her fantasy. She opened her eyes. Still her face.

Villanelle was sucking her thumb, childhood comforts dragged by Time.

Something fluttered behind Eve’s eyes. Migraine? Memory? Magpie wings?

Always the birds. Death and Time would not take flight. Eve would have to live with their presence, survive the absences left in their wake. She inhaled sharply. Sobbed aloud. Villanelle’s hand found hers. A fingernail began to detach, blood pooling and pressing beneath.

Pain inflicted. Pain endured. Doer. Done. Hers.

Her skull pounded, echoes rebounding.

A few months ago, Eve had slammed her thumb in the car door on her way home from the supermarket. She had screamed bloody murder. Hematoma. Villanelle had found a safety pin in the junk drawer and heated it over a kitchen flame and pressed red metal through Eve’s nail, sliding smooth like knife in butter, like fingers in love. Blood had spurted, finding freedom. Pain had quieted. Something saved. Just a fingernail. Nothing more. Still.

Wings beat harder, seeking flight. ~~~~

Eve heard footsteps on the stairs. She felt a hand ghost the covers. Soon Death and Time would press against her, red-hot needles on her skin. Eve could not escape their marks, but maybe she could move beneath them, redirect them, make scars of her own design. Her fingers drifted to Villanelle’s stomach, picking at the yellow thread (blooded orange, reaching red), not quite conscious of their movement.

Fuck fate. Time to fly. She pulled back the covers and started to move.

“Eve! What are you doing? You’re freaking me out.”

“Wait right here.”

“Uh, no other choice. Where are you going?”

“Hollywood, baby. I’m getting the girl.”

Eve got out of bed and stepped to Time who towered above her. “Take off your shoes and sit the fuck down.” Time, surprised, did.

\---

Eve reclaimed the room, flying high on daring and mastery. She had a plan (an idea? an instinct? sheer fucking stubbornness?) and fixated on it like a dog with a bone. She fed Villanelle pain pills like candy and mined her thoughts on how to beat Death. Villanelle was high on Eve and chemicals and spoke at a fantastic rate.

“Travel the world and climb a mountain and steal a horse and use its hoof to smote Death and finish her off with a wooden club and burn her body on a pyre and scatter her ashes to the wind.” Villanelle paused, out of breath, out of practice. “At least that’s what my mama said but – watch out! – she will defeat you first and chop you into pieces and throw you into the sea.”

“Death will do that? Or your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

Villanelle sagged under the realization, deflating like a birthday balloon. Dominos fell fast at the feeling. Stories retracted. Birthdays ignored. At least Death had thrown her parties, with cakes and gifts and inflatable things. At least Death had made this possible, moments with Eve that soon would be memories. “At least I traveled the world.”

“My mom told me stories too.” Eve hesitated. “From places where you didn’t travel.” Eve rarely talked about her mother. An injury too raw to touch. “Something about bribing Death. Orange trees, maybe? Something with skulls? Whatever.” Eve shrugged. Memories be damned. “I’m going to ask Death what she wants.”

“She just wants me.”

Arrogant and narcissistic, maybe even psychopathic. Words repeated, drawing circles. Someone had to interrupt.

“Once upon a time, maybe. Not anymore.”

\---

Eve crossed the upstairs landing and knocked on Death’s door. A small swamp had swallowed the rug, but Eve jumped it easily (pretty athletic) and sat on the edge of the guest bed, occupied by Death.

“You said you would take me as I wish.”

Death nodded, leaning closer. She raked fingers through Eve’s hair. “Would you like a fire, my love? A wolf perhaps? Something from a forest, I think.” Eve remembered wooded dream-states. She felt something alight in her veins. Death slid her hand over Eve’s mouth, then paused, puzzled. Some sparks do not need to catch. Eve spoke against her palm. “My wishes have changed.”

Death raised an eyebrow, curious. Eve raised two, curious back.

“Make a deal with me.”

Death stared, intrigue growing. “What will you give me?”

“I can’t remember. What do you want?”

“Go find Memory and then we can talk.” Death smiled cruelly, reveling in the pain she inflicted.

“Fine,” Eve huffed. “But I keep Villanelle.” As if words could act on the world.

\---

Memory should have been easy to find. Warm like cocoa and winter woolens, she should have been curled up on the couch by the fireplace, ready for Eve to snuggle. Tall and bracing in wellington boots, she should have been standing outside on the porch with an umbrella, eager for a walk in the rain. Memory should have been hanging with Time – BFFs – or talking with Death about future parties. Memory should have been doing yoga, staying flexible, willing to bend into multiple shapes. True, she could be unreliable. Sometimes she forgot her manners and butted into conversations, redirecting, as if life were all about her. Sometimes she showed up at the wrong moment, uninvited, and would not leave. Nobody’s perfect. But Memory didn’t have to be difficult. That wasn’t Memory. That was Eve.

Eve had not taken care of her. She had no patience with Memory’s persistence. She grew angry when Memory wouldn’t lie. She pushed her away too many times and hurt her feelings. And when Eve pushed, things tended to snap. So Eve broke Memory into pieces, skin and tissue, fragments of bone. Buried them deep.

Nothing mattered.

_Find Memory and then we can talk._

Fuck.

Eve was relentless. A dog with a bone? A bone that was missing. She had hidden it somewhere, sometime earlier. Under the rose bush? Under the couch? Maybe inside the laundry basket? She would not rest until she found it, deep in consciousness, deep in dirt. And then she would sink her teeth into hardness that cracked and splintered against her gums and labor her jaw at the marrow inside, remembering what she had worked to forget.

Eve tried to retrace her footsteps. She had seen Memory here once, somewhere unexpected, a few weeks after they had moved in. In a box of old photos? (Eve had none). The pocket of her mother’s coat? (Eve had given it away). She looked under the bed. What a disaster. With Villanelle sleeping, nobody cleaned. Old tissues, a couple of coke cans. She pulled out a stray sandal, something spilling onto her hand. Sand. Sand? Shit.

Eve ran to the playground. She had been here on the swings when Memory came at her, an unwanted hug from a long estranged relative, taking her and Villanelle by surprise. 

_I killed my mama_. Back and forth.

_I didn’t stay_. Back and forth.

_She deserved it_. Back and forth.

_She needed me_. Back and forth.

_My mother’s dead_. Back and forth.

_My father’s dead_. Back and forth.

_I left her to die_. Back and forth.

_I left her to die_. Back and forth.

_I saved my brothers_. Back and forth.

_I saved myself_.

Stop.

Eve stuck her feet into the ground, abruptly. She fell to her knees and dug deep with fingers, through sand and cat shit and a child’s lost toy until she found it, hard on fingers. Eve pulled the broken bone from the ground. She held the fragment. She chewed on the memory. She screamed in terror and ran.

\---

_Long ago in a distant land, the sun rose high and a small girl pouted. She marched down to the breakfast table and told her parents to snuff out the sun. She did not like it. It hurt her eyes. It gave her a migraine. Maybe it was some kind of allergy. Her father smiled and passed her the cereal. Her mother frowned and called the doctor. All was fine. All was not. Light made her angry and itchy. Light made her lose the edges of her body. Nobody listened. Nobody cared. Except one. Every day, she looked for Shadow, who heard her cries and offered protection, wrapping her in a weighted blanket, dark, heavy, warm._

_The girl was grateful, maybe ecstatic. Her mother was anxious, maybe judgmental._

_Her father taught her shadow puppets. Rabbits. Foxes. Birds._

_Throughout childhood, after nightfall, when Shadow had stretched and reclaimed the house, the girl’s mother sat on her bed and told her fairytales from memory. (She could not read books without light). She told her stories of tigers and mountains, of wayward children and magical stones. And when the girl begged – please_ _엄마 (eomma) please – her mother told her stories of Death. Beautiful. Powerful. Amoral. Bored. Open to negotiation. “I’m expensive,” Death whispered from the depths of her mother’s memory, and fantasy heroes left their homes, abandoned their families, pushing and shoving to pay Death’s price._

_To live, to suffer, to sacrifice._

_The stories took root in the girl’s head. They grew in size to match her body, ever changing, blossoming like tomorrow’s bruise. She dreamed of skulls befriending travelers, children sacrificed in rivers, citrus groves that fell and failed. Death, she knew, could not be killed. Corruption was a different story. Learn the secret, make an offer, say “yes” to everything Death wants._

_Her father drew her pictures of magpies. She pinned them to her bedroom wall._

_After the blood of her second period, the girl’s dreams changed. Nuance enhanced black and white landscapes. Ambivalence seeded dread and desire. She dreamed of ghosts without faces, descendants who refused to remember. She dreamed of foxes who became daughters who tore out their parents’ hearts. She chewed up lightbulbs, spat out fuses, roared at night as dreams took flight through skies that did not care for stars._

_On the day she left home, her father gave her a handheld mirror engraved with birds, ones that knew their own reflection._

_Life unfolded. She found a dream job in a casino, graveyard hours at the blackjack table, nightshift daydreams of dealing with Death._

_Life twisted. Panicked phone calls at four a.m., hospital visits, traveling standby on red-eye flights, institutional disinfectant._

_Life folded. Laid down its hand._

“She wouldn’t do it. He was sick and she gave up trying. There were new therapies, experimental treatments. She said I was being childish. Too painful. Too risky. She just didn’t want to deal.”

_The edge of dreams ripping and crumbling, useless against florescent light._

“She was right.” Somehow Eve was back at the house, talking with Death, the all-knowing asshole. “Besides, your mother had nothing I wanted.”

“I do.”

Eve was solemn, as if in ceremony. As if words could act on the world.

She felt her father tug at her torso, the empty weight of a missing limb lost in a war that she barely remembered. She wondered how she had ever walked home. Death inhaled, smelling grief, sharp and sour, rotten meat. Opened her mouth. Unlocked her jaw. Swallowed Eve whole.

\---

Years later, after The Ending, Eve would say that it lasted for days, or maybe years, or forty-five seconds. She remembered that Time had shown up briefly and spun a few cartwheels, before they slipped away unnoticed. She remembered that it wasn’t silent, although she could not name the sound. A perforated eardrum perhaps? An ocean wave trapped in a shell, washed up on a rocky beach?

Eve couldn’t describe the look of it either, inside of Death. It wasn’t dark. It wasn’t light. Something other, something absent, a blankness that displaced the whole. At some point, Eve lost track of her senses. She only knew the skin of her mouth, where teeth had loosened blood from membrane and tongue sought comfort, worrying cheek.

The belly of the beast.

Nothing was there, but somehow something resembling fingers slid down something resembling throat. It made Eve vomit. The taste of almonds and three-day old milk. The fit of her skin clung too tightly – body memories of dark wet dresses – and begged to be unzipped, unworn.

Eve rocked in some kind of motion.

She tried to move her arm. It jerked. She tried to move her leg. It stretched. She felt the thud of ground underfoot. Inside of Death and still of the world. Was that possible? Life and loss becoming one?

“Let me go.”

She mouthed the words and didn’t hear the sound that issued. Death did though. Death did.

\---

When Eve came to, she was in the guest room on Death’s bed. Her shirt was damp with grief and vomit. Her body sprawled like a starfish, elbows, angles. Lose a limb and something grows back.

“I want that,” Death said simply, voice rough from all she swallowed.

“Why?” Eve asked defiantly, voice rough from all she lost.

Always the questions. Deflections. Denials. No matter. Death forever had the last word.

“You were right, Eve. I was listening. I was watching. I know you more than you know yourself. Villanelle’s broken. And you like it. When she hurts, when she cries. You eat it up to feel something, to feel anything. Just like I ate up her kills.”

Death bit her lip – or was that Eve’s lip? – the boundaries between them increasingly blurred.

“I’ve seen it, Eve. You hold her like a baby bird, with broken wings, in your palm and you just want to – ”

Watch. Comfort. Squeeze.

Did it matter? Death was right. Messiahs. Sadists. Lovers. Bosses. Viewers of a TV show. Syphoning value from Villanelle’s pain. _I thought you were different._ Yes. No.

“And?” Eve asked. _I am like you now._ Although she already knew the answer.

“Your pain, Eve. It’s devastating. Give it to me. That’s the deal. I’ll break you open. Eat you alive.” _We are the same_. “Watch.”

“I keep Villanelle?” _I love you. I do._

“If she still wants you after I’m finished.” _You don’t know what that means_. And then, as if in afterthought. “Until I come back.”

Eve’s voice dripped with sarcasm, as if scorn could dilute surrender. _Whatever you say, boss._ “Anything else?”

“I know you are special, Eve.” _I am, I am. I won’t disappoint._ “Will you bid me a special goodbye?”

_Yes, to everything Death wants._

\---

Death came on Tuesday. She walked into the living room, dressed for the occasion, wearing a long black gown and veil. Villanelle scoffed. “It looked better on me.”

Eve had told Villanelle about The Ending, but not the After. After could wait. Eve couldn’t risk Villanelle’s grief. Not tonight. She couldn’t hold that pain in her hand.

“Can I watch?” Villanelle had beamed with pride.

“I don’t need your help.”

“But can I watch?”

Eve had helped Villanelle downstairs. She lay on the couch, clinging to consciousness. Time gently stroked her hair. Birds gathered by the window. Memory weaved around the room, recording a video on her phone. Almost like a family gathering. Almost.

Eve dragged the hallway mirror into the room. She propped it up next to the fireplace. Death nodded in approval. Eve flushed. Breathed deeply. Moved. She punched the mirror, as Death had shown her. Twice. Three times. Glass cracked, untempered. Knuckles split, unsafe. She pulled loose a long narrow shard, wincing as it met her palm.

Killing was one way to say goodbye. 

Eve sat in the reclining armchair, locked upright, legs apart. Death sat at Eve’s feet, facing forward, leaning back until her head touched Eve’s stomach, forearms resting on her thighs. Pulses pounded. Pressure built. Time covered the room in treacle.

“Remember, it counts even when it’s bloodless.”

“I know.”

“Remember, to push it in slow.”

Was Death nervous? Or excited?

Eve knew what she was doing. Death had been a very good teacher. She found the artery, pumping with substance. She entered at an obtuse angle. She twisted counterclockwise. And then she heard it. Heard the sound of balloons popping, fabric tearing. Heard a scream escape a throat. Birds flew in through open windows, hit the ceiling, tried to exit, hit the floor. The rug was thick with bloodied feathers. “Don’t stop.” Eve moved her arm through muscle, forming circles, pressing harder, carving patterns that couldn’t be traced. She caught Death’s eye in the mirror, losing focus. “Do it, Eve. Please.”

Eve obeyed. She dropped the glass. She used her fingers. She pulled Death open like a wound. Her hand curled, thumb tucked, to make a fist to slide inside to wrist to arm to elbow deep to find the spot where – .

There.

Waters broke, thick and heavy. Stinking liquids coating birds staining floorboards. Oil spills of the deepest seas.

Solid. Liquid. Gas. Gone.

Death was everywhere. Death was nowhere. Folded over one hundred times.

Eve stared in the broken mirror. She recognized her own reflection.

_Remember, it must be devastating_. No, no.

Yes.

\---

The others were busy. Villanelle had fallen asleep on the sofa, head on a pillow placed by Time. Time had slipped into the kitchen, busy putting on the kettle. Memory was lost in thought, watching her video, over and over.

Eve moved trance-like, sweeping up the glass and feathers. She carried them into the garden in a dustpan and buried them beneath the rose bush, in a deep hole that she dug with her hands. She picked a flower to lay on the mound and (carelessly? carefully?) pricked her thumb. And there among shared cigarette butts and loose soil, Eve did something she should have done sooner (months ago certainly, probably years). She remembered Death and cried.

And then it ended. And then it began.

In between time.

\---


	4. Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death has gone. Eve and Villanelle struggle with all that’s left behind.

Death had gone. Eve missed her. Death would return. Eve knew that. Longing and dread, an old dialectic. Waiting for its resolution. Resolution takes time.

Time became part of the furniture.

Most of Villanelle’s wounds healed quickly. Rats and magpies brought her new teeth, strong and sharp. Cells regenerated. Nails regrew. She longed to test them on Eve’s skin, to give her moments that could become memories. Time, for once, would be on her side. But Eve wasn’t there. Eve was gone. Mostly. Still.

\---

On the Tuesday of Death’s departure, Eve had taken root in the garden. A tree had sprung up overnight on the burial ground. It bore no fruit, bar one rotten peach. It cast shade over grass and flowers and plants that wilted in the absence of sun. Eve settled among its roots and refused to leave its shadow. Time moved around her, unnoticed. A month of Sundays, a year of Tuesdays. Once in a while, Eve went inside. The occasional shower. Sometimes a meal. Mostly she did not.

Memory came and went as she pleased.

\---

At first, Villanelle tried to talk with Eve. She tried encouragement. “You wanted to save me. And you did.” She tried shaming. “Eve, you are so fucking stupid.” She tried anger. “I swear to god that I will shoot you in the head and watch you die if you don’t come back inside.” Nothing worked. (Had it ever?). Words just got in the way.

Villanelle brought her sweatshirts and pillows. She made her a mattress of moss and leaves. She visited the local garden center and returned with flowers that grew in the shade. She planted a flower bed around Eve. She bought a high-end vintage camera on eBay and photographed Eve from their bedroom window. She turned the guest room into a dark room and learned how to develop photographs, creativity without light. She made memories of sadness and loss and she didn’t mind. She stayed vigilant as seasons changed, each one different than the last.

When delicate seedlings struggled to thrive, Villanelle killed them a little too quickly.

When she learned that sweet peas weren’t edible, she couldn’t stop her tears.

\---

“What did you promise her?” Villanelle stood at the backdoor eating an apple. She didn’t ask as an accusation. She just wanted to know.

Eve sighed. Throat swollen. Words painful. Villanelle had watched the Ending from the sofa, as Eve had killed Death as goodbye. Must she tell her about the After, the details drawn up in the guest room, the binding of contractual ties?

“This, V.” Eve gestured to the barren tree, its blanketing shadow. She hit her chest and felt the echo, the emptiness that cloaked her heart. “A lifetime of my buried grief. I told her I would let her have it. I would unearth it. Let it hurt me. Let it torture me. Let her watch.”

Villanelle hated feeling jealous.

“Why does she want it?”

Death was bored. Sadistic. Voyeuristic. Death wanted Eve for a very long time. Did Villanelle really need to ask?

_She swallowed me, tasted me, punished me, stripped me, spat me out, and wanted more_. _She found my weak spots, stuck in fingers, liked my sounds as she pulled me apart._

“I don’t know.”

\---

Eve’s grief grew like weeds in springtime, fast, invasive. It wrapped her ankles, reached her knees, until she couldn’t tell the difference: Eve and anguish, Eve and loss. She was something, _someone_ , once (once before? once again?) but here and now, nothing other. Only this. Memory. Mourning. Time.

Devastating. Obviously.

Endurable. Perhaps.

Death watched Eve with satisfaction. Hungry smile. Eager eyes. She missed the rush of Villanelle’s violence but loved the slow-burn horror of loss. A different show, with different pacing. Entertaining still.

\---

The fog rolled in late one morning. It stayed for too many days to count. It filled the garden and filled Eve’s head until she could not see her hands. She was looking for something when it came, a valuable thing that she needed to find. She pushed through rose thorns, scratched her arms, fell to knees, raked through stones. She covered every inch of the ground, looking and sifting with calloused fingers. As if all lost things could be recovered. As if effort could rewind time.

When Villanelle found Eve, she was at the end of the garden, penknife stuck into fallen-down fencing, splinters stuck into wind-beaten skin.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s in here somewhere. I have to find it.”

“What have you lost?”

Eve turned to face Villanelle. Her eyes were bloodshot, wide with terror. “Everything.”

Villanelle didn’t try to correct her. Just led her to the garden swing.

“I miss it sometimes.” Villanelle used tweezers to remove Eve’s splinters. “I don’t want to do it. But I miss it still.”

Fingers on metal on wood in flesh. Pulling out truths long overdue.

“What parts?” Tug. Throb.

“The air, mostly. It went electric. Crackled with power. It made me feel like I couldn’t be hurt.”

Memory joined them, nodding at Eve. _Don’t be scared. Be brave, be brave_. Birds gathered. Magpies. Sparrows. Eve rubbed the hairs on the back of her arms. Villanelle kept on talking.

“And I was so good at it! Wasn’t I, Eve? I was amazing. And it was so easy. Everything else – ” She gestured around her. The house. The tree. Grief. Eve. “All of this is so fucking hard. When something is weak, I just want to kill it.”

Eve nodded. _Admit it, admit it_. “I feel that about you sometimes. I don’t mean to. I just – ” 

A baby bird in the palm of her hand.

“I know.”

The palm of her hand on Villanelle’s thigh.

“Sometimes I wish we’d done it together.”

Villanelle exhaled slowly, felt Eve’s head upon her shoulder, whispered into tangled hair. “Me too.”

\---

Eve began stacking stones. One for the loss of the fantasy. One (and more) for reality’s toll.

\---

It wasn’t all roses. Villanelle brought home two rabbits from the local pet shop, to match the slippers that Eve no longer wore. Villanelle gave them names – _you’re mine, you’re mine_ – but it didn’t matter. They were dead by morning come. Eve did not try to protect them, as foxes slipped between fences, built to keep up the fiction of property, useless at keeping predator from prey. It was vicious and bloody and over in seconds. Only pieces were left behind. Eve just watched, unaffected. She didn’t gasp or cry or scream. She had seen it all before. 

Villanelle found the remains the next day. So much death. Fur and meat. She paced the patio. Slammed her fist against her head. _I am so stupid._ She went to the shed and grabbed an axe and smashed the rabbit hutch into pieces.

“For fuck’s sake, V, it’s just a rabbit.”

“I don’t give a shit about rabbits.” Visions of caretaking broken apart. 

A strong wind dipped between them, whipping leaves around their ankles. Death sighed in satisfaction.

\---

The first frost was the hardest. Eve hadn’t seen it coming. She had fallen asleep just after midnight, wrapped in blankets that Villanelle gave her. Sleep came easily; dreams did not.

In some dreams, Eve was an inanimate object, acted upon and unable to act. Other times, she was a lost child running, through coastal towns she had never seen, from tidal waves about to break. In most of her dreams, she was the violence: the axe that swung, the plane that crashed, the hands upon her father’s back that pushed him under the inbound train. On this night of frost and cruelty, she was hunter, crossbow, knife. Bill was her prey. She stalked him through Berlin streets and danced with him in London ballrooms and held him close in Rome hotels and stabbed him twelve times through the heart.

Fingers tore at her. Birds divebombed. A foot on a breastbone split her in two. She reassembled incorrectly and woke up panting, feathers in mouth.

Fuck Death and all her stages. Eve stormed into the house. Villanelle sat in bed, wearing a face mask. Dead sea clay.

“Eve?” Her voice was hopeful.

“You fucking killed him.”

Eve was violent, righteous, repetitive. She spoiled for blood she had already spilled, already staunched. She hit. She hurt. Villanelle took it, as if she deserved it (she did, she did). Absorbing blows as yesterday’s punishment, today’s penance, tomorrow’s mark.

Clay lodged beneath Eve’s nails. Nose cracked beneath her fist. Blood ran like terrified children, scared of mothers, scared of monsters. Villanelle rolled Eve over, patience snapping like bone.

“Do it.”

Bloody noses, better times. Villanelle moved to kiss her. Eve’s words blocked her path.

“Do it! Kill me.”

Hanging in the space between them, gallows for the execution.

“Finish the job, you fucking psycho.” Unrelenting.

Villanelle let Eve go. Everything felt out of reach.

“Make it stop. I can’t live like this.”

_And now we walk._

Villanelle tried to speak. Eve hit her over and over.

“Kill me already. It’s all that you’re good for.”

_Never look back._

Villanelle left the room. She left the house.

_Don’t turn. Walk_. 

Eve returned to the tree in the garden. She slept with boulders on her chest. In the morning, she stared at stones she did not have the strength to stack.

\---

In the wake of Eve and Death, Villanelle relived abandonment. All of those years of being alone – _I didn’t mind that you took me there_ – crashing down – _I didn’t mind_ _that you never came back –_ collapsing roofs of burning buildings – _what I minded, what I minded_ – burying bodies alive.

Villanelle lay under blankets for days until she got bored and crawled from the wreckage. Nightfall. She grabbed the car keys. She drove for hours. She found herself in a Manchester nightclub, eyeing up women and touching up someone and going through motions as if they were memories. She still had it. She could have anyone – and maybe she did and maybe she didn’t – it didn’t matter _._ She didn’t want anyone who wasn’t Eve.

At some point, her hands closed on a throat. It might have been triggered by anger or lust or sadness or boredom. It still wasn’t easy to sort through those feelings. Visions of Amsterdam, waiting and wasted, the strength and breadth of Konstantin’s shoulders, and then she missed him and all his betrayals, and she didn’t want to do that to Eve. She put down the body (dead? alive?). She picked up herself (dead? alive?). She slept it off in the back of her car. She woke to the sound of children shouting and a hangover worse than any before.

She felt old. It felt nice.

Back home, Villanelle climbed the stairs and sat at the window. She watched a woman emptied by grief, stacking stones, counting, counting, talking to birds. This wasn’t Amsterdam. She wasn’t stupid. She would wait forever for Eve to show up.

When she cried in the mirror that evening, she knew the feeling well.

\---

One cold morning, Villanelle rose early and bought Eve a bowl of oatmeal, with raisins and sugar. She carefully removed twigs from Eve’s matted hair. Dandelions grew behind her ear. Soon they would turn to seed and Villanelle would blow there softly, childhood memories of measuring Time. New beginnings would scatter and flounder and some would stick and new life emerge.

“You started cooking?” Eve’s voice echoed from lifetimes ago.

“I took down the smoke detector. If Death comes again, I don’t want a warning.”

“When, not if.”

“Yes.”

Later that morning, Eve went inside to the kitchen sink and rinsed out her bowl.

\---

They used to go to the Harrogate baths on Thursdays. Turkish not Roman. A two-for-one deal. They used to bump shoulders in the lobby, steal sex in the darkened steam room, lie in heat, sweat in silence, always be the last to leave.

Eve did not want to return. She had rocks to gather, stones to stack. Some of them she painted colors. Reds, yellows, greens. She whispered in her mother’s tongue as birds swept down to keep her still.

Villanelle drove to the baths alone. It wasn’t the same. She thought of empires and their traces. She thought of ruins never rebuilt. She counted her conquests, too many to number. She named her losses, too heavy to hold. She blamed her dizziness on the steam. Plunging into freezing waters. No one there when she came up for air.

She bought seventy-two postcards at the gift shop. Not enough, but all they had. Back at the house, Memory helped her. It took three days. On some postcards, she wrote a name. Others hosted a brief description. (Bad smell. Nice shoes). Sometimes she described the scenery. Sometimes she described her clothes. On a handful, she wrote paragraphs, formed in shrunken, sweeping writing that reached the edges and looped around. The one for Max was surprisingly long. Two for Nadia. Mid-afternoon she walked outside and asked Eve to help her build a fire.

“You hate fire.”

“I hate many things. I’ll dig a pit, okay? 

“I’ll chop wood.”

“You hate axes.”

It took a long time, but they were both stubborn. By sunset they had built a fire, stacked logs, created a new way to burn. It lit easily. Some sparks are destined to catch. Villanelle threw on the postcards, counting, counting. Except one. She gave it to Eve. “This is for you.”

Eve read it over and over. She glanced nervously at Villanelle. Villanelle nodded. Eve slid it into her pocket. Fog drifted out of the garden. Eve looked at Villanelle again.

She saw her for the first time in months. Recognition. Outsides that came into focus, clear sharp lines and definition. Insides that refused containment, colors bleeding, liquid spilling. Eve remembered where she was and how she got there, what she wanted, why she stayed.

“Hey, you,” Eve murmured softly. “Come here.”

They kissed beside the fire. Smoke and soot and cardboard fragments. Spit and longing and home.

That night, as Eve lay down to sleep in the garden, the Milky Way arced the sky. So much light. She realized that she didn’t mind it. The branches of the tree were thinning.

“Can I join you?”

Eve hadn’t heard Villanelle approaching. Trained assassin. Wanted woman. Eve pulled back the heavy blankets. Squealed as cold feet touched her ankle. Again as warm hands found her backbone. Again as fingers moved inside. The stars above her. The woman beside her.

Dead. Beautiful. Bright.

\---

By the time the chainsaw arrived, Eve was mostly living inside, back in the house. It happened slowly, no clear boundary. One rainy day she went in for dinner. One morning she took a bath.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Eve asked after lunch on Sunday. Villanelle did.

Night times still belonged to Death.

They watched movies sometimes, Eve lying in Villanelle’s lap, eating popcorn, Villanelle’s fingernails on Eve’s scalp, behind her ear. One night, Eve fell asleep. She woke up hours later, uncomfortable on the couch, a blanket draped across her body. Fuck it. She went upstairs to bed. The mattress was different than she remembered. Villanelle’s body too. Eve tracked the changes in early daylight. New freckles. A tan line at the base of her neck. She wrapped an arm around Villanelle’s stomach, tried to nuzzle against her shoulder. The fit was strange. Death had broken them into pieces. They had endured and reassembled. But nothing was quite the same.

“Hey baby,” Villanelle mumbled, reaching for Eve as if it weren’t urgent.

No matter. They had time.

\---

Eve had bought the chainsaw to cut down the tree, but in the end, she didn’t use it. What was the point? The tree was smaller and less foreboding. It stood there as a silent reminder. Sometimes Eve would sit beneath it, still in shadow, stacking stones while magpies watched. Sometimes Villanelle would join her, writing postcards or doing pull-ups from the highest branches. Mostly, they moved around it, sometimes forgetting, sometimes not, making life alongside Death. ~~~~

Grateful for the mundane moments, mindful of their inevitable end.

\---

Death came on Tuesday. Years later. Still a woman. Still divine. Time had changed, but Death was constant, give or take. She sipped a latté (this time with caramel). She wore a jumpsuit (the time in blue). She chewed gum. Quitting was hard. She rang the doorbell. A new chime. The door opened.

“You?” asked Eve, surprised. She had grieved for Death long ago – fucked her too in the upstairs guest room – and remembered multiple deaths in her arms.

“Who else, my love?” said Death and even though Eve loathed to see her (longed to see her, thrilled to see her), she could not deny that her love was real. “I’ve returned to repeat the cycle. I’ve brought Villanelle her favorite balloons.” She held up a bag, uninflated. Reds, yellows, greens.

Villanelle heard her name. She came downstairs from the guest room gym, a gift from Memory to keep them strong. She stood by Eve, a hand on her shoulder. Steady. Tender. They survived this once. They could survive it again.

“In that case, you’d better come in.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading to the end! This was my first time writing magical realism, so please comment/kudos if you liked it. And say hi on twitter @olderthaneve


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